Criminalizing normal kid behavior

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ASPartOfMe
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18 Jul 2017, 7:16 am

After Schoolyard Slap, Autistic Child Charged With Assault

Quote:

A Castle Rock child with autism is facing third-degree assault and harassment charges stemming from a schoolyard tiff almost two years ago, when the boy, Logan Thompson, retaliated against a student's push by slapping him in the face.

Thompson is facing two years in juvenile detention on the grounds that he is a serious threat to the safety of students and teachers in the Castle Rock school district.

“We don’t want to see any more assaultive behavior,” said Chelsea Koch, a deputy district attorney with Douglas County, in court on Thursday, July 13. “All we are asking for is that Logan gets the services that he needs.”

The DA’s office has refused to drop the case against Thompson, opting instead on Thursday to keep him under the supervision of the district court and in a highly structured “management plan.” Under the plan, Thompson has been required to attend half a dozen therapy and counseling sessions per week, some of which have to be paid for by his family.

Thompson’s mother, Lisa, believes that Logan is being criminalized by the DA’s office for his autism. “This is not the way this should have gone,” she says. “This is a ten-year-old boy who snuggles his fluffy toys at night. And he is being kept in court specifically because he has autism.”

Both Lisa Thompson and Phillips raised concerns that the alleged bully’s parents, Yvonne Brown-Karpan and her husband, John, who is the facility manager for the Denver Broncos, may be using political influence with the district attorney's office to retaliate against the Thompsons after the October 2015 incident.

A Douglas County Sheriff's report indicates that the victim of Logan's slap showed no visible welts, contrary to the claims of the Karpans. However, the former principal of Saddle Rock Elementary, where the incident took place, described Logan as being "pretty violent" in the same report.

In Colorado, about 6 percent of students with autism faced disciplinary action — including being referred to the court system — in the 2013-2014 school year; that's 1 percent higher than the national average

Bolding Mine

So they are making this kid attend thrapies six times a week for something that happened two years ago where the other kid did not get hurt. Some kid pushed, the other kid slapped back, this is something that happens almost daily between elementary school boys. If the incident occured as reported this is another case of the retaliation bieng punished. Punishing retaliation sends all sorts of wrong messages namely you better accept bieng a target or else, and it is better to be the one using violence first.

A full on fight which this was not used to be handled by sending both kids to the principles office for detention where the kids would be made to apologize to each other. Now the school districts are so afraid of getting sued they are sending these type problems to law enforcement which has more important things to do.

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Kraichgauer
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18 Jul 2017, 11:29 pm

I can't imagine this autistic boy, who snuggles with his stuffed animal every night, surviving while living with juvenile criminals. Hopefully, if it does go to court, a judge will see through this bullsh*t.

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cyberdad
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19 Jul 2017, 1:18 am

Well this wouldn't happen in Australia or the UK

Kraichgauer
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19 Jul 2017, 1:22 am

cyberdad wrote:

Well this wouldn't happen in Australia or the UK

I like to think it wouldn't happen in most places in America. I recall how in the article, the autistic child's parents thought the parents of the other boy were using their political pull with the D.A. in order to prosecute.

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traven
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19 Jul 2017, 2:21 am

..and also normalising 'criminal' behaviour

this goes for adults too, and you find also the 'wrongdoers' (criminals?) getting themselves into politics,
while in the politics there's a huge personal-interestdriven conspiring to include vs exclude, on a bigger scale that's Clientelism,
in smaller scale politics its about the same but for the fun of participating moreso,
dehumanisation of the 'enemy'
in every uprise, the jealous take on to their neighbors, it won't be different in any next time

you even see attributed much more power to the jealous in these last years, it's very troubling!!

ASPartOfMe
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19 Jul 2017, 3:01 am

Kraichgauer wrote:

cyberdad wrote:

Well this wouldn't happen in Australia or the UK

Do not know about Austrailia or the UK but in regards to America your thinking is unfortunatly wrong. Things have changed a lot since we went to school.
Why are we criminalizing behavior of children with disabilities?

Quote:

In this post, Miranda Johnson, associate director of the Education Law and Policy Institute at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, writes about how the behavior of some students with special needs is becoming criminalized and explains why this is happening. Johnson, who is a Public Voices Fellow, supervises law students in Loyola’s Civitas ChildLaw Clinic and the Stand Up for Each Other Chicago Suspension Advocacy Project.

A Florida mother recently watched in horror as her 10-year-old autistic son was handcuffed and arrested at school. The child, John Benjamin Haygood, was taken into custody and spent a night in jail because, six months earlier, he kicked and scratched an aide assigned by the school to support him in his special education classroom. Yet John’s need for help managing his behaviors is precisely the reason he was entitled to extra support at school.

Unfortunately, this incident — while extreme — is not atypical. The most recent national data released by the Department of Education show that students with disabilities account for a quarter of all children arrested at school, even though they are only 12 percent of the school population.

As a lawyer who represents students who have been suspended or who face expulsion from school, I regularly work with young people who have become involved in the juvenile justice system. They are protected from being expelled when their behavior is related to their disability, but they can still be arrested, charged in juvenile justice proceedings or even criminally convicted when they are charged as an adult.

We have about 19,000 school resource officers (SROs) — police officers deployed by law enforcement agencies to work in schools — throughout the United States. Officers are stationed in 29 percent of our nation’s schools. The number of SROs has dramatically increased over the past two decades, and so have school-based arrests for minor offenses.

Because SROs are trained as law enforcement officers, they view children’s behavior through a police lens. For example, an officer may view hitting a school staff member as a battery justifying arrest, not taking into account the child’s age or special needs. The officer may not be aware of the student’s disability, any behavior intervention plan in place, and the processes available in schools to revise the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) to address and support the student’s behavioral needs.

A recent report issued by the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law found that of police officers assigned to Chicago Public Schools (CPS), 67 percent have civilian complaints lodged against them, 31 percent have three or more complaints, and 11 percent have 10 or more complaints. In fact, two officers assigned to CPS schools have fatally shot teenagers off school grounds.

Criminalizing Children at School

Quote:

The National Rifle Association and President Obama responded to the Newtown, Conn., shootings by recommending that more police officers be placed in the nation’s schools. But a growing body of research suggests that, contrary to popular wisdom, a larger police presence in schools generally does little to improve safety. It can also create a repressive environment in which children are arrested or issued summonses for minor misdeeds — like cutting class or talking back — that once would have been dealt with by the principal.

Stationing police in schools, while common today, was virtually unknown during the 1970s. Things began to change with the surge of juvenile crime during the ’80s, followed by an overreaction among school officials. Then came the 1999 Columbine High School shooting outside Denver, which prompted a surge in financing for specially trained police. In the mid-1970s, police patrolled about 1 percent of schools. By 2008, the figure was 40 percent.

Children as young as 12 have been treated as criminals for shoving matches and even adolescent misconduct like cursing in school. This is worrisome because young people who spend time in adult jails are more likely to have problems with law enforcement later on. Moreover, federal data suggest a pattern of discrimination in the arrests, with black and Hispanic children more likely to be affected than their white peers.

traven
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19 Jul 2017, 4:04 am

not only there, not only disabled,
it's the school in cases i know;

ds got punished for pushing a boy, who destroyed the paper ds gave to him so he could copy some missed work, after copying the boy destroys ds's work but that was ok

the same school went wrong again next year, firstly there was youth employment plan which made faulmouthing 19yo supervisors of younger teens, that was already a fantastic plan, and then, under that supervising, something happened and the school send to the police accusations (duty to rescue) for all the boys in the class, i warned the other parents to not go with that, and that whole thing turned against them and the troublemaker's parents who blamed the school (trying to get money) while it was their son who started and hurt himself, and booh to the school who tries to give that round to the parents as an easy (and wow, educational supermanouevre) blame-someone-else game

since..... :evil: for populationdynamic-reasons levels of middleground has been lowered, add feminisation of education that has been very disqualifying for male kids, normal (boy)behaviour must be medicated, stigmatised, punished etc

nineinchnailsfan93
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21 Jul 2017, 4:26 am

This is absolutly appauling. Theyre treating autistic people like were animals. Hes just a kid, its not like he busted another persons lip with a baseball bat.

BuyerBeware
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21 Jul 2017, 8:56 am

It's not isolated, and it's not new.

The "out group" retaliating against bullying (or just plain bad behavior) from the "in group" has ALWAYS been punished.

If you're "out," you have three choices: punishment, submission, or absenting yourself (either physically or mentally).

NONE of them are safe, but my personal recommendation is for escapism and a very thick skin.

Maybe if enough "outsiders" and their loved ones make enough noise, we can change things-- but I'm not holding my breath.

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Sweetleaf
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21 Jul 2017, 9:42 am

So this kid gets legal consequences for slapping a kid who pushed him...what about the kid who pushed him? Isn't that violent to? Or what its ok to push other kids but not slap them? I don't get it, sounds pretty unreasonable and unfair.

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cyberdad
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21 Jul 2017, 10:27 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:

cyberdad wrote:

Well this wouldn't happen in Australia or the UK

Yes I think certain states in the US are probably still a little backward about how they classify criminal actions...

Kraichgauer
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21 Jul 2017, 10:35 pm

cyberdad wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

cyberdad wrote:

Well this wouldn't happen in Australia or the UK

Yes I think certain states in the US are probably still a little backward about how they classify criminal actions...

Unfortunately so.

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Lintar
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21 Jul 2017, 10:46 pm

cyberdad wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

cyberdad wrote:

Well this wouldn't happen in Australia or the UK

Yes I think certain states in the US are probably still a little backward about how they classify criminal actions...

A "little" backward? They're in the bloody Stone Age! What is wrong with you people over there? Why do you allow such stupidity to flourish?

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21 Jul 2017, 11:43 pm

Lintar wrote:

cyberdad wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

cyberdad wrote:

Well this wouldn't happen in Australia or the UK

Yes I think certain states in the US are probably still a little backward about how they classify criminal actions...

A "little" backward? They're in the bloody Stone Age! What is wrong with you people over there? Why do you allow such stupidity to flourish?

Look at a political map of the US. The enlightened blue are on mostly the coasts, while the greater expanse of the country are far right, culturally regressive right wingers, which are colored in red. Even in the blue areas, some of the red types get through, and get high ranking positions.

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22 Jul 2017, 2:19 am

Quote:

Thompson is facing two years in juvenile detention on the grounds that he is a serious threat to the safety of students and teachers in the Castle Rock school district.

They wouldn't know a serious threat if it bit them in the ass.

Two years in juvie will either kill this kid, turn him into a basket case, or turn him into a real threat that will kill the next kid that crosses him in school.

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Misslizard
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22 Jul 2017, 1:31 pm

My son lobbed an apple across the school cafeteria and hit the school bully right in the nuts.The apple exploded upon impact.The bully keeled over bellowing.It was epic.The principal didn't do anything but yell at the bully for being a wuss and crying about it.
I guess nowadays my son would be charged with assault with a deadly apple and sent off for rehabilitation.
I was proud of him.

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